Month: October 2011

Starting out Day 2 of the HP Cloud Field Day, we have Dave Larson. A Chief Technologist for Security and Routing, Dave is responsible for HP’s vision into the cloud and how the security of enterprise data will be secured and managed. According to Dave, the latest trends in IT of virtualization, cloud and consumerization lead to new challenges that are similar to those we faced throughout the history of IT. This history goes from the Mainframe of the 1960s through Client-Server LANs in the 80s to the web in the 90s and into the early 21st century and now into Cloud Networking. The transition has forced new challenges with diverse users, diverse applications and increased complexity. Traditional IT strategies are not able to address these new concerns. Traditional solutions are complex and difficult to secure and manage, inflexible and slow to adapt, and constrained making it ill-suited for new apps. The question is how we change traditional approaches. Dave points out that you need to build a scalable, agile, secure network that streamlines operations and enables a better operating model. HP feels they can answer this call for a new agile network with a multi-tier vision. By owning the infrastructure, wired and wireless access points, IPS/IDS systems, and embedded apps, HP plans to then use a control plan with a tiered management to the network look like the virtualization stack of today. An interesting comparison that the physical platform that has control similar to a hypervisor with applications similar to VMs and then a management interface that is a comparison to vCenter.

HP feels that by combining the solutions into a stack, they can now treat each user differently and each device differently. This flexibility and agility is the missing component to the current networking solutions. The goal would be to be able to tell if I was connecting to a corporate network from my laptop over a VPN, or in the office, or from my smartphone or maybe my tablet.

Dave continues today discussing HP’s approach to security, but for that I will defer to the security bloggers that have joined me at HP Cloud Tech Day, make sure to take a look at the other great blogs

Gary Thome is presenting the future of HP cloud, 10 years from now. Gary is part of the Industry Standard Servers and Software team as the VP of strategy. The first question is why would you want to move to the cloud? Moving to the cloud provides two key benefits, first it is instant access to data and applications, and the second is the separation of that app and data from the management of the same. This is a key differentiator that changes the way an enterprise IT department works. Before an IT department can help manage a cloud, they need to know what it is. Gary points out that “The best thing about the word cloud is that it can mean anything you want it to.” What is the cloud taxonomy? At this point I think this has been shown more times than I can count, you have IAAS, PAAS, SAAS, then you have to determine is it public, private, or hybrid. This seems to be the first step before you even start to move into the cloud, you need to understand the taxonomy. To narrow that down some you can see the cloud as a revolving path similar to that path taught with ITIL.

HP has been building the cloud for years just without actually naming it the cloud. They have also dedicated entire teams to help companies transition from local datacenters and server rooms into the cloud. With CIO requirements now leading to the need to transform and deliver the business processes with minimal costs, it is now crucial for the cloud to be considered. Continue reading “HP Enterprise Cloud Strategy — HP Cloud Day”→

VMware announced today at VMworld Europe the vCenter Operations Management Suite. Those of us who are familiar with the product set will see lots of significant changes including the addition of vCenter Infrastructure Navigator 1.0 and a new user interface. vCenter Ops Suite delivers an integrated performance capacity and configuration management solution for your vSphere environment. You are able to continuously monitor for compliance and health. This release is the first integrated suite and allows seamless upgrades between Standard(Ops Manager Only), Advanced(includes Chargeback), and Enterprise(includes Configuration Management). The suite is scheduled to be available for deployment in Late 2011 or Early 2012. Continue reading “vCenter Operations Gets a Facelift”→

First off I have to send out a big thank you to HP for sending all the contestants in the VMworld Blogger Reality Show a great new toy to test out. I was pleasantly surprised when I got home on friday from work to a good size package. As I opened it I found a HP Touchpad bundle(includes the sleeve), a bluetooth keyboard, and a TouchStone Charging base. As many of you know I have been a iPad user since v1 and have really come to enjoy using it when I don’t need to open up my laptop. I added the Clamcase to it when it was first released and the ipad became one of my primary tools. The big question now is will this new Touchpad join my repertoire. Continue reading “Testing out the HP Touchpad and WebOS”→